Spanish Ballads: Definition, Origins, Classification, and Style
Romance Definition:
Poems-narrative (tell a story) – to a certain number of verses. “Octosyllabic” (8 syllables, minor art) – popular literature (traditional) -> has been transmitted (partly) orally; the people endorsed them (they listened with taste, and even sang/memorized them).
Traditional daily-life offered a thousand reasons to croon ballads: to enjoy family chores, rejoice in field work, lull children, accompany sewing, etc. Also, on special occasions such as weddings, baptisms, or pilgrimages, ballads have been present in the community. But above all, their purpose has been the sheer pleasure of the people.
Comparison lyric-narrative (tells stories and reflects the thinking and sentiment of the protagonists). Rhyme: assonance in the poem, in paired lines.
Anonymous Ballads, perhaps because the creators believed they were giving the people texts for reproduction as songs, so that the people would endorse them, eventually changing some words. -> individual author, anonymous + author/town that is changing.
Old Ballads -> Ballads composed until the 15th century and early 16th, anonymous author.
New Ballads -> Composed after the 16th century to the 20th, known authors (Lope de Vega, Góngora, Juan Ramón Jiménez).
Origins of the Ballad
Several hypotheses:
a) Historical thesis: fragments of epic poems that people asked minstrels to recite.
b) Individualist thesis: ballads have been single works; holders have come from sources other than epics.
Plural Origin of the Ballads
Epics: fragments of epic poems (source 12th-13th century), historical-traditional thesis.
Newscasts: composed on characteristic themes in the 13th and 14th centuries, individualist thesis.
Minstrel: composed in the 15th century (era of success in ballads), topics: romantic, lyrical, Carolingian, individualist thesis.
Classification of Items (Irrespective of Source)
Historical-epic (national)
Historical-epic (not national), Carolingian
Border: Muslim <-> Christians. Events associated with contact between Christians and Moors: fighting, covenants, etc. And Moriscos: personal relations between Christians and Moors.
Storytelling Ballads
Lyrical Ballads: focused on the feelings of the protagonists, storytelling.
Classification of the Form
Ballad scene: dialogue dominates.
Ballad narrative: story of someone who is out of the situation dominates.
Style Features:
Fragmentary: very common feature in ballads. Provides only the essence of a story. There may not be a final or complete introduction (end truncated).
Repetition of formulas: “Here speaks…” “Well shall hear what he will say” “who in good hour was born” “as her response was to give”.
Simplicity of resources: accessible language, limited descriptions, few adjectives, repetitions e.g., Abenamar, Abenamar or fonte frida, etc., exclamations and apostrophes: when you summon someone.
Frequent use of dialogue.
Suggestion: to make the receiver understand something without saying it.
Using different verb tenses, Historical Present.
Literary Resources:
Metaphor: to replace a real element with an imaginary one (enriches the imagination and the literary language but is difficult to understand.)
Comparison: relate a real term with another using a comparative link.
Parallelism: repetition of two or more elements with the same syntactic structure and semantics.
Anaphora: repetition of the first term in successive lines.
Rhetorical question: a question that does not expect an answer.
Enumeration: list of related words, phrases, or sentences.
Exclamation
Polysyndeton: unnecessary repetition of conjunctions.
Asyndeton: voluntary suppression of conjunctions.
Cervantes
Alcalá de Henares (1547) – Madrid (1616)
His father, a humble surgeon. Studies Bachelor of López de Hoyos. Might have attended the University of Salamanca. Great taste for literature.
1569:
Rome, linked to the Spanish army and the service of Cardinal Acquaviva. It appears he fled Spanish justice for having fought a duel and wounded a man who allegedly called him a pig.
Old Christian: 4 Christian grandparents. New Christian: 1 grandparent was not Christian. Could not get prominent positions in the church, the army, or travel to the Indies, which Cervantes sought but was not granted permission.
1571: Lepanto (Italy), soldier in the army of Don John of Austria (brother of Philip II). Heroic action. Wounded for life in his left hand.